Big BMI’ed girls they make the rockin’ world go round

Body mass index, or BMI, is a measure to determine if a person is overweight. It’s just weight over height squared. (Calculate yours here.) In any sensible society, this would be recognized for the very approximate measure that it is, since muscle mass or bone structure or fitness isn’t taken into account.

Of course, there’s no sense at all in the way our society sees weight. Putting aside the health insurance incentives, that little BMI number tells you just how much you should hate yourself – a little? a lot? never leave the house again? Even if the BMI tells you that you’re not a grotesque hippo-whale, the deluge of fashion/celebity/porn culture means that somebody else will – I once heard a claim that every woman who “took care of herself” should look like Padma Lakshmi.

Fortunately, Kate Harding’s new project, Illustrated BMI Categories, is a fine antidote. She has posted photos of people with a range of body types, along with their heights, weights, and BMIs. Looking at it, I realized that I have no idea what real people weigh – most people were way heavier than I thought they were. (And since I am way heavier than people think I am, I should know better.) For women, I kinda think that everyone has these Cosmo-Maxim-trashy-novel numbers stuck in their heads – 100 lbs is tiny, 120 lbs is hot, 140 lbs is curvy, 160 lbs is obese, 180 lbs is inconceivable.

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 1st, 2007 at 11:58 pm and is filed under Health, Shame. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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This post was in fact inspired by past conversation with you. As for more men, Harding says that she’s looking for more, but the male readership on a feminist body image blogs isn’t exactly teeming. If you know anyone who’d be into submitting a photo, I’m sure she’ll post it.

And ZOMG! send your mom the blog post! I want to be TOP SCIENCE BLOG in your hometown. :>)

[…] Shame Being of the short and busty type (hi, fellow Jewish women!), I’ve long had a contentious relationship with the metric of Body Mass Index. Even when I was climbing large mountains every day […]